


Common Tongue

by Lilliburlero



Category: King Rat - James Clavell
Genre: Canon Typical Attitudes, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Prisoner of War, Racist Language, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 06:28:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11845863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilliburlero/pseuds/Lilliburlero
Summary: In fact, Peter Marlowe and the King do speak the same language.*Note: frequent reference to underage sex in English public school context, puns and plays on words, including one homophobic one, canon-typical racist language.





	Common Tongue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [looselipssinksubs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/looselipssinksubs/gifts).



‘You got sent to one of those genuine old-fashioned British boarding schools, right?’

Peter Marlowe, suspended on his hands in the corner of the hatchway, swung in the air for a moment. His bony backside met the floor of the hut in a tiny puff of dust. ‘Well, I went to a public school.’ 

The King knew that colourless voice by now, though not exactly what Limey lunacy it betokened. The only way to find out was to play along. 

‘You serious? Captain It’s-Not-Done-Old-Boy let his only begotten son be educated with the hoi polloi?’ 

Peter winced. ‘Hoi polloi.’ 

‘’s what I said.’ 

‘No _the_. Hoi is the article, so you’re saying _the_ twice.’ He got to his feet and closed the trapdoor, dusting his hands. 

‘You gonna answer me, or what?’ 

Marlowe rolled his eyes and assumed one of his ragdoll postures, throwing out his left hip and rubbing his shorn nape with the back of his hand. It should have looked petulant and effeminate, and perhaps it did, but like his sarong, it belonged on him. ‘Repeat the question, Corporal.’ 

‘Jeez. I hate it when you get like this. It was just a regular school, then? For regular people?’ 

‘Regular.’ Peter sauntered over to the unoccupied chair and folded himself into it. They had the hut to themselves: Jones and Miller were on a work party, Max and Dino on the chow run. Kurt? Who knew, but whatever he was doing it was probably squalid. ‘Nominally the sons of gentlemen, of course, but the odd heir to a nylon knickers or agricultural fertiliser fortune. One alleged Rajasthani prince. Had a hare lip and never seemed to leave the San.’ He accepted a Kooa and a light with a pleasant murmur of thanks. 

‘But it was a boarding school? And your folks had to pay?’ 

‘Oh, yes. That’s what a public school is, more or less. Well, there were day boys, but—’ An undulation of the rangy shoulders dismissed the day boys. 

‘So in England a public school means a private school. Figures.’ 

‘Oh no. You go to private school _first_ —usually at seven, until you’re thirteen. Sometimes known as a prep school, or prepper. Simple, really. If you’re sure you’ve got it, we can try cricket again.’ 

‘Go to hell. So, a private school is an elementary school for rich kids—’ 

‘Boys. Girls are always private, pretty much.’ 

The King smiled crookedly. ‘Now, _that_ depends. But, yeah, I got it. What you guys call a public school is what _we_ call a prep school, some goddamn New England seminary full of tightass phonies playing polo all the time.’ 

‘Well, close enough. Not polo.’ 

‘Yeah, yeah.’ The King waved a hand. ‘So, what do you call public schools, then? That anyone can go to? Or don’t your English peasants get to learn how to read?’ 

‘Board schools.’ 

‘Ri—ight. So a board school is the opposite of a boarding school. Like I said. Figures.’ 

‘You could put it like that. What’s it to you, anyway?’ Marlowe was staring through him to the wall behind. The King craned around. A chi-chak, quivering atop another. Christ, they were all desperate, but a gecko peepshow was a new low. Below them, a rat screamed, and Peter flinched back into himself. 

‘I’ve got a restless mind. Was it like this place? The atmosphere?’ 

‘We bathed rather less. Got more food, not so tasty.’ 

‘I mean it. Before the Army, there was nothing like this for me. Closed off. No social life. Just men. There has been, for you.’ 

‘You surprise me,’ Marlowe said to the steaming tar-paper roof. 

‘Fuck you. Yeah, OK. I did some shit coulda landed me there, but I didn’t get caught.’ 

Marlowe sucked the last of his smoke through pinched fingers, flung the scrap of a butt on the floor and trod it out under a hardened heel. ‘So. No. Nothing like this. No matter what Smedley-Taylor and Jones tell you.’ He put on an exaggerated version of his own accent. ‘ _Good God, for a man who survived Eton, or Rugby, or Harrow—a few more mozzies and Japs, eh what?_ Nothing like,’ he said in his normal voice. ‘Nothing fucking like. Next question.’ 

Marlowe’s light blue eyes fixed him, provokingly. Otherwise he might have let it go. ‘Were there a lot of fags?’ 

‘Oh, we all were. To start with.’ 

‘Is that—right?’ 

Peter’s face twitched all over. ‘Mm. Someone’s got to black boots and grates, blanco the webbing on the prefects’ OTC kits. Wash up after lashings of sausage and crumpet.’ He stretched out his long legs in front of him. The weathered skin over his hollow belly crumpled into concertina folds. 

‘Say again? In English this time.’ 

‘A fag’s a junior boy who does chores for the older ones,’ Peter relented. ‘Character building, you know.’ His eyes raked the table: two decks of cards, small bale of cured tobacco, the inevitable lighter (dull pewter Dunhill, engraved J.M.) in general use until the dirty fingerprints of trade had faded, pack of Kooas. ‘Buggering them as well was considered rather beastly. At least—without a decent courtship, a touch of gallantry, you know.’ 

The King digested this, drumming arrhythmically on the table. He craned around. The chi-chaks had parted and were frozen in a stance that looked like mortal aggression, but perhaps he just thought that because it was the way he usually felt afterwards. 

‘After games,’ Marlowe went on, ‘it was probably the principal recreation.’ The King turned back, swatting a fly, to regard him searchingly. ‘It bored me excessively, I’m afraid,’ he said, his voice light with defensiveness. 

‘I didn’t ask about you,’ the King replied, steadily. 

The King didn’t lie to himself. You can’t deceive other people if you indulge in self-deception. He loved these tense moments with Marlowe, when the sodden air turned crisp and combustible, and he provoked them whenever he could. One day, perhaps, Peter would lash out physically, but he could take that, and him: he still had fifty, sixty pounds on a Marlowe somewhat less malnourished than when they’d first become acquainted. He would enjoy it, punching Peter, being punched by him. There would be repercussions in terms of business, of maintaining face, but he could deal with those too. They’d almost be worth it. They would be worth it. But this was not the day that Peter Marlowe hit the King. 

He defused into laughter, as he always did. He had a beautiful laugh: rich, intimate, catching. 

‘And I’m not telling. A gentleman doesn’t.’ He narrowed his eyes and groped inquisitively towards the pack of Kooas. The King nodded. ‘Queer thing about you. You keep me straight. Excessively bored is what you _say_ , when you become a man, and put away—and anyway, it does all seem rather tedious, looking back. But at the time I was as fascinated as anyone, all the gossip, who had a thing going with whom. I shared my first study with a celebrated Tart, toast of the military privs—that is, men going up to Sandhurst, the Army college, you know. He came back after one summer vac with a gross of autographed studio photographs of himself, size of cigarette-cards, like a bloody starlet. He gave one away on each—occasion, and he didn’t have any left by Christmas, anyway.’ 

The King’s unexpected shrill giggle drew from Peter other anecdotes, variably convincing: the notorious aftermath of School vs Old Boys footer in ‘36; Malone, whose involuntary but exuberant response to a senior common room whacking had orgiastic result; Sharpe, who took on all comers in the lavatory of the special train bringing the boys to school, until semen seeped beneath the cubicle door, puddling at Matron’s shoe-tips as she joined at Westbridge halt. 

When Kurt peered around the door, Marlowe was in the middle of the tragic, farcical story of Collins and Farrier: in love with one another, and barred expression of it by immemorial taboo on sex between peers, they resolved to share a fourth-former, but never could agree on which one. Marlowe noticed the hunched shadow and continued regardless. As Kurt’s eyes adjusted from midday blaze to the gloom of the hut, he saw the King’s hand pressed to the front of his long pants, imagined the shaded outline of his hard-on against the khaki twill, muttered _about goddamn time_ , and crept away.


End file.
